


without you here it's not the same (don't leave me waiting)

by brahe



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Force-Sensitive Finn, Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, Force-Sensitive Poe Dameron, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Sign Language, The Force, everybody gets the force as per usual with me, it's all just very emotional, kind of, leia's wisdom, poe's mild hero complex, shara's ring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:35:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22432714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brahe/pseuds/brahe
Summary: Leia's looking at him with some foregone sadness etched into her face, and her apprehension is thick in the Force. Poe frowns, looking from the datapad to her."Sir?"Leia sighs, shaking her head. "I don't know about this one, Poe," she says, and she sounds far away. She's looking past Poe, looking past the visible world, too, he suspects. She shakes her head just barely, coming back to the moment, looking down at her hands. "I don't know."
Relationships: Poe Dameron & Leia Organa, Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 10
Kudos: 152





	without you here it's not the same (don't leave me waiting)

**Author's Note:**

> i watched too many solider homecoming videos before writing this :/
> 
> i have nothing to say for myself except that i wanted to write a tearful goodbye with a surprise, unplanned proposal
> 
> i also spent way too much time looking at days of the week in star wars, and we're going with the tuesday concept 
> 
> this might end up as part of the canon of the fic im working on that centers around shara's ring; we'll see
> 
> title from welcome home by joy williams
> 
> (yeah it's the one in that toyota commercial)

Poe gets his next orders on a Tuesday afternoon.

The General calls him in to talk, hands him a datapad as he sits down.

"This could be a rough one," she says, sitting on the edge of her desk and folding her hands together in her lap. Poe skims through the dossier: First Order officers, intel, high risk – the usual.

But Leia's looking at him with some foregone sadness etched into her face, and her apprehension is thick in the Force. Poe frowns, looking from the screen to her.

"Sir?"

Leia sighs, shaking her head. "I don't know about this one, Poe," she says, and she sounds far away. She's looking past Poe, looking past the visible world, too, he suspects. She shakes her head just barely, coming back to the moment, looking down at her hands. "I don't know."

"Sounds just like another Black Squadron mission," he says, but he keeps his words careful. "What's different?"

"I wish I could tell you," Leia says. "It's just...just a feeling, I suppose."

Poe frowns again. "Nothing's ever just a feeling," he reminds her, repeating the words he's heard from her so often over his life.

There's a ghost of a smile on her lips at that, gone in a blink. "No," she agrees. "I suppose you're right."

She turns to him, full attention this time. "You don't have to take this one," she tells him. She absent-mindedly fiddles with her father's ring she wears on her hand. "I can't, in good faith, ask you to take it." When she sighs again, it feels like the Force sighs with her, a great exhale of sorrow. "I can't lose you, Dameron."

Poe reaches for her, takes her hand, holds it tightly. "You won't," he says, like he always does, even though they both know it's not something he can promise.

Leia holds his hand back, and Poe tries not to think about the unease, the trepidation that settles around his bones.

"You better be right."

—–—

"Hey," Finn says, coming back to their quarters for the night, two dinners balanced on a tray in his hands. "You weren't in the mess, so I figured…" He sets the tray on the small table by the door and turns to Poe, then frowns.

Poe's laid out on the bed, wearing one of Finn's shirts that hangs a little too big on him, and he's got the ring he always wears between his fingers, rubbing at it as he stares at the ceiling. There's something in the air, in the Force, sits on the back of his tongue and curls around his lungs, something that threatens to steal the oxygen from him if he lets it linger too long.

"Hey, baby," Finn says, coming over to the bed. He kneels at the edge of it, debating whether to reach out for Poe or not. "What's going on?"

Poe hums, and they're silent for a moment, Finn twisting the edges of this sheets between his fingers in an effort to give Poe his time, his space.

Finn's knees are starting to protest by the time Poe finally turns his head, wide, reddened eyes flitting around Finn's face. Poe swallow.

"New orders today," he says, and his voice is low and rough, cracking over the hard sounds. He stares at Finn, deep and long and like it's maybe the last time he'll ever see him, and then he turns, suddenly, back to the ceiling. His mother's ring is clenched tightly in his hand, no doubt leaving a red, circular impression in his skin.

"Okay," Finn says, keeping his voice quiet. He does reach for Poe, now, slides his hand across the sheets to his head, threading his fingers through Poe's hair, rubbing his thumb against the skin along Poe's hairline, his temples, his eyebrows.

Poe's eyes flutter closed as soon as Finn's fingertips brush against him, and even from the low angle, Finn can see the worried creases of his forehead.

"Leia doesn't – Leia's worried about it," he says, low, careful, and Finn swallows, his own worry immediately jumping up into his throat.

"Can you not take it?" Finn asks, now rubbing circles into Poe's right temple. Poe sighs, sagging into the mattress.

"She said I could," he tells him. "But I – I can't not," Poe admits. He blinks at the ceiling, a slow movement of long, dark eyelashes. "You know I have to."

Yeah, Finn knows.

"Okay," he says, again, even though it's not, he's not. "Okay."

Poe rolls his head back to the side to look at Finn again, and his throat closes, his chest spasms. "I love you," he says, choking on the sob that's pulling at him, his jaw aching with the effort of keeping it at bay. He shifts his arm, holding it out to Finn, brushing his thumb along the line of Finn's nose. He makes a noise, halfway between a sob and a cough, and the first few tears fall, running sideways over his nose and onto the sheets. "I love you so much," he says, and he crumbles all at once.

Finn shoots up off the floor, climbing onto the mattress beside Poe, shifting him, scooping him up and holding him against his chest. He runs his hands through Poe's hair, down the lines of his shoulders, traces the shape of his spine, the curve of his jaw. "Sh, sh," he murmurs, calm as he can as his heart slowly breaks apart. "I love you, I love you."

Poe curls into him, lets himself be held by wide palms and strong arms, lets himself be sequestered away from the galaxy, lets himself have this moment. He knew it was dangerous, falling in love, but he, foolishly, hadn't expected it to hurt so bad. He fists his hand with his mother's ring in the fabric on Finn's chest, and wishes, for the first time in his life, that he could put himself above this war.

—–—

Finn follows him to the hangar, to _Black One_ , their hands held tightly together as they walk slowly through the hall. BB-8 trails behind them, and the air sits heavy and somber around them, unusual and unsettling. Finn hates it.

Finn stands to the side as Poe situates his ship, setting the cockpit ladder in place, checking BB-8's magnets, loading his artillery. It's methodical and stiff, Poe's back both intimately familiar and distantly impersonal at the same time.

When Poe turns to him, flightsuit up around his shoulders and zipped, now, his face is drawn. He offers Finn a small, sad smile.

"I'm sorry," he offers. Finn sighs, fingers itching to touch. He worries that, if he reaches for Poe, if he smooths his hands over his skin, that he won't be able to bring himself to let go.

"Not your fault," Finn tells him, immediate. He sighs again. "Just – come back," he says, and it's low, it's dirty, it's impossible to promise, but he's filled to the brim with foreign fear and maybe he resents Poe, just a little, hypocritically, for taking the mission anyway.

That small, sad smile could shatter hearts, really, Finn thinks, watching the way it spreads a toss Poe's face, turning his eyes, crinkling his wrinkle lines.

"I love you," Poe offers instead, a weak truce at best, the Force around them shimmering with warning, with the hairline fractures of impending grief.

Poe takes a half step forward, hesitant, hands curling and uncurling at his sides, and then Finn's got his hands on Poe's cheeks, palms wide against the faint, rough stubble.

He presses their foreheads together, eyes squeezed shut. Poe's skin is blood-warm, his life a bright, buzzing presence in the Force, as familiar to Finn as the sun. Thinking about losing it makes his heart clench, makes his breath catch.

Poe brings his hands up to rest over Finn's, sliding his fingers around Finn's to hold them tightly. He's looking at Finn, heavy, dark, memorizing features he'd already know at the end of the world.

"Marry me," Poe says into the scant space between them. Finn's surprised laugh is wet, half of a sob, and he pulls his face away to look at Poe, shifting his gaze between Poe's open, honest, sad eyes.

"Not the time, Dameron," he says, thready, barely enough of his control left to handle this. Poe shakes his head.

"I'm not kidding," he says, and it's obvious in his face, in the earnest desperation that clings to the edges of him.

Finn leans forward again, brushes their noses together before pushing into a kiss, salty and desperate, toes curling in his shoes, and the heavy, forlorn sorrow between them tastes bitter. Poe's question is low, mean, dirty, and just the thing he'd say. _Of course._

"I'm only gonna marry you," Finn starts, and he has to stop, emotion in his throat too thick to speak through. He curls his hands into Poe's hair, holds their foreheads together. "I'm only gonna marry you if you promise to come back," Finn says, a whisper, and he's never seen this look on Poe's face before, deep sadness and regret carved into the creases beside his eyes, between his eyebrows. He's projecting so strongly, familiar, endless love threaded through with sour fear, bitter grief, and Finn's nearly drowning in it.

Poe's shaking his head, hands so tight on Finn's hips he's certain he'll find little oval bruises there later. "You know I can't," he says, in that quiet, strained, high voice, too choked by emotion to say it any louder. Finn's crying again – not like he every really stopped – and he pushes their faces together, his nose pressed into Poe's cheek.

Poe can't promise to come back, they both know that; and no matter how much he wants – desperately, achingly _wants_ – to, Finn can't marry him, not now. They don't have the time, standing here beside Poe's ship with minutes, seconds left, and Finn doesn't have the strength, doesn't have the strength to let him go until he absolutely has, doesn't have the strength to really think about Poe not coming back; so Poe lets go of him long enough to tug his necklace off over his head, and Finn watches, unbreathing, as he fiddles with the chain and the ring. He can barely see anything through the tears sitting in his eyes when he looks down, metallic silver and warm tan blurred together.

Poe holds up Shara's ring, for the first time in years free of its chain, and he smiles softly, sadly at Finn. "What about this, then?" he says, and Finn chokes on a sob, can't stop the next and the next from coming, can't say anything at all through the lump in his throat, so he nods instead. He lets his left hand trail away from Poe's skin, offers it to Poe's shaking fingers, watches as he slides the ring on – a perfect fit, metal warm from Poe's body.

Finn pulls him into another kiss, bodies as close together as they could possibly be, Finn's hands settled again on either side of Poe's face. Poe can feel the metal of his mother's ring – Finn's ring, now – against his skin, and it makes him want to laugh and cry at the same time, so he just holds Finn tighter and kisses him harder.

He doesn't let go until the takeoff siren starts, blaring loud and echoing in the hanger. He pulls away slowly, rubs at Finn's tear tracks with his thumbs.

"Keep it safe for me," he says, as he lets his hands fall away, already missing the feeling of Finn's skin under his fingertips. He steps back, takes one last, long look at Finn, at his warm, sad eyes, at his mother's ring settled against dark skin; and then he turns, up the ladder and in the cockpit in seconds, helmet over his head as he pulls the glass closed behind him.

BB-8 is running the countdown to full engine power when Poe risks a last glance at Finn. His left hand is over his heart, and he meets Poe's gaze.

Poe holds up a hand, fingers curled in an old, familiar form.

He sees the laugh it startles out of Finn in the shake of his shoulders, and then Finn is moving his hand from his chest, signing back at Poe, metal glinting in the sun.

 _I love you_.

He takes off into the sky and tries not to think about the heart he leaves on the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> there's probably going to be a second part to this


End file.
